A
Concise History of the VOC (Dutch East Indian Company)
150
Years after the discovery of the sea route to the East and despite being
a poor country with no resources of it's own and constantly embattled by
greater powers around it, the Dutch managed to wedge themselves into the
established trans-oceanic trade and maintain the upper hand for two
centuries. In the process they dispersed peoples from the East to the
West and from the North to the South.
Instead
of being the first to start an East Indian Company they were amongst the
last. Except for the Spanish and Portuguese, the Danes, French and
British also had similar companies, but none was so well prepared as the
Dutch to make it work. They had spent a 150 years gathering expertise,
wielding influence in the economies of Europe and making their own
region prosperous despite the fact that they had no resources of their
own.
From
the 1400's onwards the Dutch had developed financial and trading
interests in almost every country and every venture in Europe and
Scandinavia from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. In the beginning they
extended the herring trade, essential for long voyages. Harvesting salt
and having salt harvested by peasants all over the coastal regions they
could reach was the first mainstay. They enlarged their herring boats to
handle larger catches with fewer men, and salted the herring on board
their capacious ships before supplying the product to the trans-oceanic
traders. After the discovery of the sea-route to India in 1497, but
being under the yoke of Spain, their trading ventures were restricted to
the oceans of the Northern hemisphere. Here they fetched and carried,
traded and collected, refined and resold at the lowest cost, including
the riches from the East via Spain.
In
1595 the continued resistance of the seven Northern Provinces of the Low
Lands against Spanish rule finally wore Spain out financially and they
were emancipated as the Union of the Netherlands. This meant that they
were free to trade where they wished, but also that Spanish ports were
now closed to them. They had to find their own way to the East unaided
if they wanted their source of income to continue. The Portuguese were
better traders than the Spanish, but their secrets were well-kept and it
took a spy fleet under Jan van Linschoten in 1595 to survey the routes
and ferret out the secrets of the Portuguese. He returned 5 years later
with an extensive report, his Itineraria. It was at this time that the
Dutch decided to pool all the fleets that were vying with each other
individually into one large Company. They named it the Vereenigde
Oost-Indische g'octrooieerde Compagnie, generally shortened to VOC (or
DEIC - Dutch East Indian Company) in 1602, with a mandate from the State
Generaal (the government) to wage wars, trade, colonise and, in fact, do
anything as was deemed necessary to control the Eastern Trade routes. In
1621 a sister company, the West Indian Company was formed to handle the
trade to the America's. See
map of the Netherlands from 1600 (71k).
THE
IMPORTANCE OF THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE TO TRANS-OCEANIC TRADE
The Cape of Good Hope had been known to trans-oceanic voyagers since
the discovery of the sea-route by the Portuguese in the 1490's. Here
they waited for laggards, sent men ashore to recuperate, left notes for
other ships, took on fresh water and traded for fresh supplies with the
locals before continuing their journeys to the East or back to Europe.
Leendert Jansz and his crew, who were shipwrecked at the Cape remained
ashore for a year, living of the land, trading with the indigenous
people and getting rice from passing ships. An indication that they
could have gone home much earlier, but were content to wait until a VOC
ship passed along. In his report he mentions that many of the indigenous
people from the coastal regions already spoke some Dutch, Portuguese and
English. Whether there were descendants resulting from one-and-a-half
centuries of regular contact with the Europeans is not chronicled, but
the assumption must be that there probably were.
By
placing a garrison on the southernmost tip of Africa in 1652, half a
century after the beginning of the VOC and well into the second century
of trans-oceanic trade, the Dutch jumped ahead of their competitors. The
Spanish/Portuguese contingent used the coast of Mozambique as their
route was considerably shorter, but the Danish, French and British East
India Companies could be deprived of this valuable halfway station, and
forced to travel further for replenishment, thereby losing time. In the
world of commerce time is money and the Dutch tended to cut their costs
to the bone.
A Sailor joining the VOC with his luggage packed,
with an important Burgher.
DUTCH
TRADING SETTLEMENTS AROUND THE WORLD
Dutch trading settlements in the East, before the Cape was
appropriated, included Jakarta, Atjeh in Western Sumatra, Malakka,
Formosa of the coast of China and Nagasaki in Japan, Tonkin and Quinam
(today known as North and South Vietnam) as well as many stations along
the coast of India, especially Bengal. During his travels Jan van
Riebeeck was most impressed with the thriftiness and conscientiousness
of the Chinese, and if he had had his wish, he would have brought only
Chinese labourers to the Cape when the time came to man a halfway
station there. South African history could have been much different
………
Other
holdings of the Dutch, controlled by the WIC, included Hudson Bay and
New Netherland (now New York) in the Northern part of North America,
Southern States such as Virginia, and the Northern parts of South
America, Curacau, Dutch Guiana (now Surinam), most of Brazil for a short
period and some of the West Indian Islands and the Western Coastal
regions of Africa, where slaves were obtained. The trade in these areas
was mostly illicit, but they were ideally set up to supply English and
French holdings in these regions with slaves and other essentials. They
too had regular contact with Batavia and the holdings in the East. The
North American holdings were lost to the English in 1664 but by this
time numerous Dutch communities had already made it their home, many in
almost exclusively Dutch settlements.
It
is mentioned that in 1640 Jakarta in Batavia, as the East Indian island
of Java was known, resembled any town in the Netherlands, swamps and
marshes laid dry with typically Dutch canals, and quaint Dutch houses
lining narrow streets. Official's wives and families were always allowed
to join them on voyages, but the wives of lower ranking married
employees had to sign a contract for ten years, even as did their
husbands. This caused families to be split up, although many wives
followed after receiving word from their menfolk that they would find
the new place welcoming - almost like home itself
THE
INADVERTENT COLONISATION OF THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE
The Cape was not designed to be a home away from home. It's purpose
was a Comptoir, (service settlement) protected by a garrison, and
building always had to make way for produce. This was the difference
between the intended Colonies and the Cape. To the Colonies the Dutch
sent homogenous groups and tried to recreate little pieces of Holland on
foreign shores. To the Comptoirs it sent adventurers and men who would
be able to do the job and endure the hardships even if the place didn't
resemble home.
In
order to enable Jan van Riebeeck achieve success he had with him
sailors, soldiers, gardeners, sharpshooters and other tradesmen required
for the task ahead. Most of them unmarried. A few of the officers' and
officials' wives had accompanied them, and Jan van Riebeeck himself had
brought a wife, a child and two orphaned nieces. They had also taken in
a little Khoisan girl, named Krotoa, and had renamed her Eva. She was to
become the "First Mother" of many South African and,
incidentally, also European families through her marriage to Pieter
Meerhoff , a Danish explorer who arrived at the Cape shortly after 1652.
Eight slaves were also included in the contingent that had to make the
Cape habitable. Except for the official's families, only one complete
family was initially brought to work at the Cape: Hendrick Hendricks
Boom, his wife and six children. Van Riebeeck had found them on board de
Dromedaris at departure, and since Hendrick was a gardener and his wife
an able farmer, allowed them to come along. The crew had to build a
little house for them on the top deck for the journey.
A Merry departure for VOC sailors with music and drinking.
Prior to their long voyage across the sea
WAS
THE CAPE REALLY HOLLANDS?
Although the higher ranks were filled mostly by citizens of the
Province of Holland, a quick survey of the places the enlisted men came
from is an indication of the geographical variety which made up the
initial core of the population at the Cape. Many came from the United
Provinces of the Netherlands, mainly Gelderland, Zeeland, Drenthe,
Friesland and Groningen, but as many were from other countries in Europe
- Lower Germany, Prussia, Belgium, France and as far afield as the
Baltic lands and Scandinavia. In fact anywhere that Dutch ships
frequented men signed up for service in the VOC. They were rough and
ready folk. And in the first months at the Cape there were many
altercations, amongst themselves and between themselves and the
indigenous coastal population when the latter became rebellious against
the newcomers.
Between
1652 and 1657 Commissary Rijkloff van Ghoens, overseer of the Cape
settlement, envisaged cutting the 600 ha the garrison occupied on the
Cape peninsula off from the mainland by means of a canal. This plan
never materialised and Jan van Riebeeck planted an almond hedge that
marked the post's outer limits instead. Part of this hedge is still
extant in the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens.
It
was soon found that the Company employees alone would never produce the
quantities of supplies required by the visiting fleets, and that more
land, outside the boundaries of the supply post, would be needed to
supply adequate produce and provide motivation for this costly venture.
In 1657 the first Free-Burghers were installed on parcels of land
outside the fort. Steven Jansz Botma and his group of four settled the
area which was known as the "Hollantse Thuyn", but was better
known as "Steven's Colony" close to a little fort named
Coornhoop (Hope for wheat). A second group of three settled under the
leadership of Harmen Remajenne, close to the Liesbeeck river. This
settlement was to be known as Harman's Colony.
The
Free-Burgher system developed gradually from this point onward. From
governor to sharpshooter, carpenter to clerk, when the contract expired
employees of the VOC had to decide whether they would return to their
homeland, move on to other VOC holdings, or stay and farm the land.
Where the other colonies had settlers who were living in luxury with
their families and overseeing the plantations and other VOC assets, the
Cape's became a colony of farmers or "boeren" as the Dutch
would term it, who were under contract to sell their produce to the
Company itself. As employees' posts were vacated they were filled by new
contractees. By 1707 a total of 528 ex-VOC employees were already
Free-Burghers, farming the land and raising families. The colonising of
the Cape had begun, unplanned and unintended. Although Free-burghers
were under contract to the Company for ten years, their children would
remain so for twenty, and due to this few parents returned to the
homeland once their time was up. Married men like Steven Janz Botma,
sent for their families that had remained behind, but others looked
elsewhere.
Since
he wasn't allowed to employ more men, and realising that the
Free-Burghers alone could never supply in the demand for produce without
extra labour, Jan van Riebeeck decided to import large numbers of
slaves. Costs had to be kept low and slaves warranted a single payment,
after which they remained without wages for as long as the owners cared
to keep them enslaved. Slaves could also be captured from passing
Portuguese ships for free or passing ships of the West Indian Company
could be enticed to let go of their cargo at the Cape at a price. Some
VOC ships were commissioned to fetch slaves from the West African coast,
mainly Angola, but after a few such ventures the West Indian Company put
a stop to that, as it was encroaching on their own lucrative trade with
the America's. Madagascar, off the East Coast of Africa was a
free-for-all, and numerous slaves were bought there. As with the "Dutchification"
of foreign European names at the time of employ, the slaves were also
arbitrarily named. The months of the year, Greek gods and goddesses and
biblical names were very popular. The only clue we have regarding their
place of departure are their "surnames", such as from Bengal,
from the Coast, from Madagascar, from Arabia, etc.
Slaves
from all the trading areas where the Dutch fleets wielded influence were
dispersed to the Southern tip of Africa, the East Indies and the
America's. From Batavia and the coast of India slaves were regularly
sent off to the Cape. From their own tribes and settlements they were
sold into slavery by a victorious rival, or as the losers in tribal
conflict, sometimes family members were sold off because the family had
run into debt, or run out of finery to trade, some were political
dissidents and others were found guilty of petty crimes or seen as
potential troublemakers in the eyes of Dutch officialdom. From Africa
the acquisition of slaves was no less insidious. They were not captured
by the Dutch themselves, but bought from the slave markets dotting the
coastal regions. Here too potential slaves were often rounded up by the
victors in tribal conflicts or the enemies of a tribe, to be sold to the
traders at fixed trading points where the slavers would pick them up in
vast numbers, selling them off at the Cape, or taking them to the East
or to the America's. In this manner families were dispersed wherever the
trade winds reached with no hope of ever returning to their countries of
origin.
In
1685 van Reede found amongst the slave children at the Cape 57 children
of obviously "mixed" parentage, the fathers unnamed, and a
decree followed whereby male "halfslagh" children were to be
set free at age 25, and female "halfslagh" children at age 22
in recognition of the European part of their genetic heritage. There are
instances in which these children carried the father's surname, and
others where they are referred to as "van de Kaap" (of the
Cape). Children of full-blooded slaves were mostly doomed to remain in
bondage throughout their lives, unless they were manumitted on the whim
of their owners. There are no fixed rules and clues must be closely
followed up for every individual case. It must be remembered that
marriages between manumitted slaves and freemen were perfectly legal and
their traces soon disappeared into the melting-pot of the early
community at large.
In
the year 1688 the first Huguenots arrived at the Cape - 179 souls in
all, they were the first cohesive group to do so - bringing with them
their own preacher and knowledge of specialist farming. With their
expertise the vineyards that the VOC longed to establish so eagerly
finally materialised. In order to expediate rapid integration within the
Cape-Dutch community they were scattered between existing farms in an
area now known as Franshoek. Their language died out within two
generations, but their customs and culture had a lasting effect on South
Africa as a whole.
CONCLUSION
These widely divergent peoples formed the main core of the founder
families of South Africa. Adventurers and clerks, sailors and farmers,
soldiers and slaves, gardeners and freemen from most continents became
part and parcel of the population. Some settled permanently in rapidly
evolving cosmopolitan surroundings and developed the typical Cape-Dutch
styles - a mixture of East and West that nestles comfortably in the
scenic surroundings of the Western Cape, and also a language which was a
mixture of Lowlandic dialects related to the languages of the Lowlands,
but with strong Eastern, Portuguese and indigenous overtones. Seaman's
jargon also remained very much extant in the new language.
Some
of the descendants of the Cape families rapidly spread further from the
jurisdiction of Cape Town and further from civilisation as we would term
it today. They survived in a different reality and soon became a group
unto their own. They learned the art of coping with the harsh conditions
of the hinterland from the indigenous peoples, whom they hunted and were
hunted by. The emphasis in their existence was based on fieldcraft and
survival in the uncompromising African wilderness. Their social sphere
became exclusive, marrying amongst themselves and accepting only those
who they deemed to share their heritage into their community. Education
was not rated highly amongst this group, although it is surprising to
find that most were functionally literate, in contrast to most farmers
and peasants of eighteenth century Europe. Itinerant teachers and
merchants were in great demand in the regions where the Trekboers, or
Itinerant Farmers dwelled. In order to keep control over it's rebellious
offspring, the VOC had to adjust its colonial boundaries continuously
outwards, but the wheels of bureaucracy never turned fast enough to
catch up with the free spirited Trekboers.
The
indigenous people of the various Khoikhoi tribes, though not enslaved,
were soon all but eliminated by the newcomers. They had no resistance
against the foreign diseases brought in by the newcomers, smallpox took
it's toll almost immediately, and trading cattle for alcohol did no less
to decimate their social structures. Their cattle stocks, the reason for
the settlement in the Cape, were soon eroded by the overwhelming demand
from the itinerant farmers, who would sometimes buy, but more often just
take, what they wanted. A reciprocal process followed - each group would
appropriate cattle from the other whenever the opportunity arose and
this was the cause of many skirmishes, normally lost by the ever
dwindling Khoikhoi.
When
the VOC finally lost control of it's holdings to the British a
population of 26,000 'white settlers' (descendants of the founding
families and immigrants that had poured in over the years), 30,000
slaves, and 20,000 Khoikhoi called the Cape Colony their fatherland.
RESEARCHING
THE EARLY FAMILIES
To all who venture into the mysteries of genealogical research in
South Africa it becomes quite clear that researching the founding
families at the Cape cannot be done without paying careful attention to
the peculiarities of research in the international arena at large. There
are numerous websites, publications and e-mail mailinglists dedicated to
research in any of the European locations. Much of the VOC information
is also still available, but difficult to access. A dedicated ring
researching the ancestors from regions other than Europe is much
overdue.
SOME
HINTS AND TIPS
Scandinavians, Frisians and people from some of the other
Netherlandic Provinces often made use of patronymics, or forms of
identification other than a family name, within their own area. On
documentation from outside their own locality their town or parish would
be added. So one would find reference to Douwe Klazes (Douwe, son of
Klaas) in local registers (birth, marriage and even taxes), but if he
moved to Amsterdam, he would be referred to as Douwe Klazes van
Schoterland in documents there. Within his own town, if another Klaas
named his son Douwe, the vocations of these people would come into play:
Douwe Klazes Veenman (the peat worker) or Douwe Klazes de Boer ( the
farmer) would be sufficient information to identify the people locally.
If Douwe Klazes was still alive when his son Klaas Douwes named a child
Douwe Klazes (as required by naming protocol), the grandfather would be
referred to as Douwe Klazes de Oude and the grandson would be Douwe
Klazes de Jong. This system lasted (mostly in rural and small
communities) until 1811, when Napoleon decreed that each and every
person should have a fixed surname, as was customary in France itself.
In many areas one still finds the patronymic stuck between first name
and surname up to the end of the 19th century. In Russia and parts of
Scandinavia the custom of a child having the father's name as
"surname" is still in use.
Within
a single country in districts no further apart than 20 km, an entirely
different naming protocol may have been used. One area may favour
patronymics, the next may favour the name of the estate where a man
worked or was born. Important Dutch merchant families, especially from
the provinces of Holland, as well as most Germans and Frenchmen
generally had family names even as early as the 17th century, but the
peasants of the Low Lands, who made up the bulk of the emigrants, seldom
did.
In
1652, when the trade winds blew the Europeans far and wide, the need for
a fixed name arose much sooner. The name the ancestors arrived with,
whether in the Cape, Batavia or the America's, was phonetically
translated into Hollands and entered on the VOC registers as a future
reference to this particular person and his family. Accent, dialect and
pronunciation often mask the true origins of the original name supplied.
Research
about the origins of a particular ancestor from India, Angola,
Mozambique, Arabia, China, Japan, Madagascar or Indonesia is nearly
impossible, except in general terms such as location and local economic
or political conditions of the time. Unfortunately the oral histories of
these people were hardly ever told to the ensuing generations, having
been enslaved was not a fact that people passed on with pride. One hopes
that in time to come interaction via the international media will make
it easier to access the oral history of these communities and paint a
clearer picture of who they really were and how they came to be
enslaved.
22/5/2000
Gerda Pieterse gpieterse@intekom.co.za
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Jan
van Riebeeck en Sy Gesin A J Boeseken Publisher: Tafelberg, 1974
Economic
History of Europe Herbert Heaton Publisher: Harper and Row 1948, Revised
Edition
Ensiklopedie
van Suidelike Afrika Eric Rosenthal Publisher: Frederick Warne & Co.
Ltd 1970
With
special thanks to - Eileen Russell, Chris Barker and The
Genforum List Basie Haasbroek Johan Erasmus, A J Kok, J Olivier, The SA
Rootsweb List M Upham, A van Rensburg (Australia), E-Mail contacts M
Wilcox USA F Roberts USA
LINKS
http://www.nusantara.com/heritage/voc.html
History of the VOC (English)
http://www.xs4all.nl/~polleke/
Extended Information on the archives of the VOC (Dutch)
http://www.anwb.nl/anwb.exe/eUAgu810/vocextra.htm
VOC information (Dutch)
http://www.epn.nl/wvraag.html?Vraag=5
Detailed history of the Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (Dutch)
http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~sdconinc/VOC/museum/
Museum site (English)
http://iias.leidenuniv.nl/iiasn/iiasn6/south/voc.html
Decay of VOC sites in India and measures to prevent it (English)
http://www.archief.nl/vrij-van-slavernij/2_dbase.asp
Manumission registers of Surinam - wonderful graphics (Dutch)
http://home.wxs.nl/~hjdewit/links.html
Digitale Bronbewerking Links to all sites required for historical and
genealogical research in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg and
beyond (mainly Dutch)
http://home.planet.nl/~vdbroeke/hoofd.htm
Indisch Informatiepunt
http://home.wanadoo.nl/mwk
Official document stating the homecountry of the ship, the name of the
skipper and the capacity (Dutch)
http://www.ryksargyf.org/nl/ryksargyf.asp
Decree of Napoleon, names that were assumed in 1811, etc. (Dutch and
partially English)
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